For any of you have ever read any of my diaries or my comments, you will know that I am a resident of the State of Florida, and further home of the "butterfly ballot" Palm Beach County, Florida, the county targeted for losing the election for Al Gore in 2000.
Further, as most of you know, Florida is one of those "States" again targeted for screwing up the election this year, only in the primary and not in the general. This time, it had nothing to do with ballot design, or chads, or mysterious laws, it just had to do with violating the rules and schedules adopted by the DNC.
In any event, as any of you who might have read my past diaries and/or comments know, I live in a fairly conservative, mostly rural area, which is more "Republican" than "Democratic". Which leads me toward this diary for today, anecdotal as it is...
This morning, as is typical for a Sunday morning, my girls and I headed out for Sunday breakfast. Our restaurant of choice is one offering typical country type fixins, you know, grits and stuff. We hit there about the type most of the Sunday morning churches had emptied out, i.e. 11:00 a.m. The place was packed. It seems we heretics and the church going type individuals eat Sunday morning breakfast around the same time. (The elite now call it "brunch") You can can always tell the difference between the heretic rednecks and the churchgoing rednecks (the heretics arrive in jeans and t-shirt, like my family, and the church going folk are wearing a dress or dress slacks and at least a polo).
Just our fortune this morning, but we happened upon a seating location that placed us just near a really large round table that was packed with 10 of the "church-going" folks. Now for the most part, it was not a "loud" table, considering the place was packed and loud enough, but somewhere around the half-hour point, one voice became louder than most. With my back turned toward the table, I couldn't see the speaker, but I could hear her quite well. Their topic turned toward Presidential politics and the candidates.
While still engaging in our own family type discussions, this disembodied loud woman's voice began to invade our table, and she was discussing Barack Obama, loudly, negatively, and passionately. My girls were already looking at me in that way that said, actually pleaded "No Mom, please don't", because they were hearing what I was hearing.
OK, so what did I do? I actually listened to the pleading eyes, and eventually voicing of the same thought, and then just listened to this disembodied voice speak. I must note at this point that the rest of her table of 10 never said a word, and with my back turned toward them, I cannot say how they were reacting, but silence is a thought all in itself.
Her rant discussed race, those calling themselves "African-American", while she never called herself a "Cherokee-American", ventured into a rant concerning Michelle Obama and how she was only "now" proud to be an American, then ventured into whether or not Barack was actually a "Christian", etc. etc. etc.
It was like reading one of those e-mails filled with misinformation that makes you want to scream WHY DON'T YOU FLUCKING JUST GET INFORMED, and I know my face was registering those thoughts, and I was just about to stand up and my older daughter again asked me to refrain. I responded to her, quite loudly that the only thought that I had not heard expressed from the table over was that the woman speaking would just not vote for a nigger like Barack Obama, and so much for Christians. Both of my daughters got that look of OMG on their face, but from the next table, there was just nothing but silence. My comment ended their discussion, and so much for that.
Afterward, I realized that because of the topic of that "table" and the "viewpoints" expressed by that woman, Barack Obama is now accepted as the nominee of the Democratic Party. The silence at her table (and yes I did take a look at her before we left and will leave out her appearance comments just because...) indicated her viewpoints were not well-taken, and even her silence after my comment was duly noted....